Rudy Apffel

Czerny Op 740 #33, 4 Versions

This is another of those graceful, tuneful studies that make me think of Czerny as the Bournonville of the piano. In keeping with his usual pedagogical practice, Czerny composes a fairly spare LH accompaniment which invites filling out. How you want to fill it out depends on how you want to project the music. I hear #33 as a sunny march, and as a march the music really does require Czerny’s tempo (dotted quarter @112), but there’s no need for the RH to be played in octaves.

The first 24 bars resolve into a one-pager, but as usual Czerny becomes more interesting past the first page so, if the RH challenge has been met, there’s every reason to work up the whole of #33 and get a number of short and long pieces into your repertory.

This is my performance of #33 with the RH simplified to single notes and the material shaped into regular 8-count phrases. I’m projecting it as a snappy 6/8 march with dottings, and I’ve elaborated Czerny’s LH to create contrast between the unfolding phrases. I supply a score. The LH chords starting at my m37 are of course rolled.

You can renotate and rebar any 6/8 to get a 3/4, whether by making each eighth a quarter or re-beaming the eighths in couplets. The main constraint is the shape of the melody and how easily it admits of the new accents. The RH of #33 readily resolves into 3/4 when the eighths are re-beamed as couplets, and Czerny’s material can readily be accented in three beats per bar.

This is my performance of #33 reshaped as a light mazurka, for which I provide a score. In this short arrangement I’m going for a light, delicate pointe character and using extreme registers of the piano for color.